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Of course, it’s one thing to decide to shave a dog, and another thing to shave a dog. She doesn’t want to bite me, or us, and that’s a lucky thing because I’m not really into being shredded open by an angry dog. Or being shredded open in general. It’s kinda sometimes one of those occupational hazard things, the kind of thing you consider maybe reconsidering when you’re in the bathtub in a swanky hotel suite with a dog who’s as big as a person and who doesn’t want any part of what you’re doing. Yeah I made this choice.
Also, the clippers are the smart kind that don’t cut skin, so that’s another upside. And they have a dog setting. It’s probably fuckin’ sacrilege, to shave a dog like this down even a little, but it’d make her less recognizable. It’s probably not great for a dog like this, to have her hair shaved very much.
I think I had the idea that being in the bathtub would keep the mess minimized but instead it made the clippers louder and was slick so made Honey nervous and so we get out of the tub pretty quick. Once I just let her stand on the bathmat, she minds the clippers less, and really, who knew that being a dog groomer was such a specialized thing? I guess they use tables, they have the dogs stand on tables. But she doesn’t look too mangled when I’m done. We’re all used to quarantine haircuts by now. She also doesn’t really look like the same dog, which was the whole point. She’s also got a tattoo in one ear, which I never would’ve found otherwise, and I take a picture of that for Bitsy’s files. And while we’re still corralled in the bathroom, she comes in with the microchip scanner she kitbashed together from all her collected scraps, and we scan the regular place and then some irregular places lookin’ for a chip, but don’t turn one up. Which is interesting, because the auction catalog listed a chipped dog. Chips fail sometimes, sure, but I think all our guts’re telling us this is something else.
“Dolly, I never would have expected you to be crafty like that!” Bristol exclaims while I’m doing the paracord, while Honey chews some apology jerky and Bits is, I assume, crunching on that dog tattoo data we got.
“It ain’t exactly knitting,” I say, because doing stuff with paracord is pretty utilitarian but also, we don’t know everything about each other. Sometimes it’s more obvious than others. Sometimes it matters more than others.
“No, but you could probably, I don’t know, do hair.”
“I don’t think you want me doin’ your hair like this, Bristles.”
“Well no, but...” she trails off, but she’s smiling like she’s learned a secret. And it’s nice to see her have that kind of sly smile again, honestly. Bristol’s attractive in any number of ways, but it’s not for nothing that I never mix business and that type of pleasure. Besides not being her type. I’ve seen her devastate men across the globe.
“Anyway, we all packed? Anything else we need?”
“I think we’re good,” Bits says.
“You got us a boat picked out, Bitsy? Any last minute data finds that’ll make us change our mind?”
“I have a few boats in mind.” She pauses, I guess to scan through some stuff. “And no. It seems like we’re maybe on the right track.”
“Well okay let’s hit it.”
I’m actually impressed with how little luggage Bristol has, but I guess with her veteran traveler status plus the kinda money we got floating around, she doesn’t actually need to carry much. And a lot of her dresses like, vacuum pack down into eggs or something. I dunno. I always just roll a few pairs of jeans and tank tops and stuff into a duffle and call it good. Riot gear’s most useful when it’s on you, anyway, no sense having to worry about packing it.
This isn’t to say Bristol doesn’t have more luggage than the rest of us, but we don’t need to hitch a cart to the dog to get it to the marina. And she carries it herself. I wonder, sometimes, how she got and stays so fit, without ever letting somebody see her break a sweat. She doesn’t run. She doesn’t go to a martial arts dojo or anything. Could she have just watched enough krav maga videos or something and learned it that way? There’s other ways to hands-off learn something like that, my time in the not-quite-legit area of the military taught me that, but is any of it something Bristol would do? I actually think it’s real important to not let yourself get too comfortable in what you assume people are willing to do. Limiting your estimations can be hazardous to your health.
And yeah, I kinda think Bristol would do a lot of things. Whether I’ve seen her do them or not. She got this way on her own sheer determination. And now that I’ve finally realized what that brittle edge she’s had is all about, I’m just trying to keep an eye out, without being too obvious about it. Which probably means she knew about thirty seconds into this morning.
The dog’s happily perched near the front of the boat like a figurehead, barking at the chop and wagging her tail, and I look at Bits, and she’s already got her VR goggles on, making sure we aren’t being APBed and targeted by militaries and flagged for bounty the second we’re in international waters or something. Not like we can do a whole hell of a lot, depending on who comes after us. I feel pretty bad about not being able to put that handgun back where I got it, but I’ll treat it good so long as I have it, and hopefully it won’t be at the bottom of the ocean before all this is through.
“Bristol, you gonna be okay?” I finally ask. Then fumble for a reason I’m asking. “You normally get seasick?”
“I’m sure I’ll be fine,” she says, smoothing her skirt. Because of course she’s dressed as though she’s yachting and not as though we almost got shot last night. Over a dog. I nod and I wait. “No, I don’t normally get seasick, and you know it.”
“Check the cooler, see if there’s ginger ale.”
“Dolly, you don’t need to baby me.”
“I just know that you really enjoy feelin’ like you’re in the lap of luxury,” I drawl. “And we ain’t got the room for staff so...” She laughs, finally.
“Yes, I hadn’t gotten around to hiring a personal assistant yet. They always require such hand holding and I just can’t abide it.” We’ve got the smile again, and I think I’ve distracted her enough. Which makes me wonder, is she acting like this on purpose to distract me from something, but if that’s the case, that isn’t a game I’m gonna win so I might as well just quit or play along. And we’re in the middle of the...what body of water is this. The South China Sea, and there ain’t a lot of quitting options. Not unless some pirates swing by and I join up or something. We probably should’ve thought about the whole possibility of pirates. I don’t think they tend to have rocket launchers out here, though, that’s more of an Indian Ocean thing.
The dog gets bored with the waves eventually and makes her way over to Bits, who pretty much hasn’t moved since we’ve come aboard, and curls up at her feet. I play some music in my earbuds, then I wonder if we can get any kind of radio signal out here and scan for that too. Mostly static, a couple blips from maybe submarines or other boats or something. It’s hard to know, what it’ll grab sometimes. Not like I listen to numbers stations as a hobby, the way some people do, but the fact that it’s viable is truly a thing of beauty.
Actually, now that I’m thinking about it, submarines could be a thing we should worry about. Not ‘cause of the dog people, but because of who we crossed during the business with the diamonds. Shit, wouldn’t that be something, thinking we’re home free to cash in on this reverse dognapping and then a sub surfaces with that Will guy coming out of the hatch.
We used to do that a lot, me and my...well if we were real sanctioned military we’d be called a unit. Me and the guys. The ones who were part of the black site, “what if we put these various cybernetics in people with a certain type of training?” and the “what if we gave people this kind of training?” and “what about these injections?” and “what about this muscle density without increasing any apparent mass?” Those guys. We’d be bored somewhere, doing exercises, because all we ever really ended up doing was training exercises, canned deployment exercises, for the people with clipboards and the brass whose faces we never saw. We’d be bored, and we’d come up with worst case scenarios in as much exquisite detail as we could muster, and we’d then turn to somebody and say like “Hey Cash, wouldn’t it be something if...” or “Hey Trigger, do you think somebody ever...” and lay whatever it was out. And everybody’d be like “nah” or they’d join in. Good times.
So we’re all within earshot of each other but I gotta pick one and Bitsy looks busy even if maybe she isn’t so I say “Hey Bristol, wouldn’t it be something if...” and she suddenly looks up and off to the side, and then shades her eyes even though she’s wearing sunglasses, and she says
“Ladies, do we think that’s going to be a problem?” in a deliberately casual tone and I wonder if I’ve conjured a submarine into existence by my habit of whistling past the graveyard. If that’s what whistling past the graveyard even means. Does anybody know what that means? And anyway, it’s hard to be anywhere that’s never been a graveyard. There’s probably sunken ships under us right now, even if there isn’t a sub. What Bristol’s pointing at isn’t a sub.
I can’t help it, and laugh. “We got problems with that, it’s ‘cause whoever’s at the helm ends up blind,” I say. Bristol looks a little hurt, and I realize my eyes’re better than hers. I forget about that, despite everything else. The eye thing is more subtle; not all AR and stuff like Bits’s, just...better. “Sorry, sorry. It’s a cargo ship.”
“You could have said so,” she says, a little primly.
“Hey I said I’m sorry.”
“You two will argue about anything,” Bits says, blinking at us.
“Yeah, prob’ly.” Actually, a cargo container ship would be a great way to do a whole lotta things. How many helicopters could take off and land on a cargo container ship, even if it appeared totally packed to the gills from our remove. “So, not right now, but do you think—”
“Please no,” Bits says.
“You didn’t even listen to what I was gonna say!”
She looks from me, to the ship, and back again. “Do I need to?”
“I guess not.” I grin, and Bristol laughs softly.